97 ls 4 door engine swap
 

I'm looking to take on a new project.

My daily driver is a 97. I'd like to swap a new engine in. Do not know what engines are popular or will fit. Looking for more horsepower. All suggestions are welcome. Thank you!

It depends on how much you want to do.

An LS engine is more involved but worth it. Check out s10 forums for builds with an LS swap.

A small block is easier and vastly more done. 350 vortecs are more common to swap. For a 350 vortec you need; motor mounts, headers, electric fans, your pcm reflashed to run a v8, and splice 2 more injectors into your wiring harness. That's the basics of the swap. Some people need to dent their firewall and other things, while others don't. Do some research and decide what you like better, 2WD and 4WD differ but only a little. The oil pan is the main difference between 2WDs and 4WDs.

Sincerely,
Xter

Hey man so sorry for this late reply. I completely forgot I joined this forum! HahHaha anyway in the past few weeks I've decided to rebuild a carbureted 350. Gonna go with Lunati voodoo cam, edelbrock intake and carb. Still adding goodies to the list for now.

Don't sweat it lol. How are you looking to build this engine? Are you gonna try to squeeze the most power you can out of it, or more low end grunt? What are your goals for this engine? I see you're upgrading your camshaft so I figured I'd ask.

Well a friend of mine is helping me do this. It's my first rebuild and I virtually know nothing about mechanics. He's basically going to let me do it myself but teach me the how's, whats, and whys. I'd like around 350hp and decent torque. I've decided I like the sound of the lunati 60103 idle and hear good reviews that it has a decent output. We are going with the carbureted method generally because he has a holley carb he is giving to me for free. Also going with flowmaster cats and super 40 exhaust. I just seem to like those the most out of the 1000s of videos I've watched this month lmao. From what I can tell we aren't gonna load it with new parts but rather clean it up and salvage what we can for the sake of the budget. I have a 2k budget and I'm trying to squeeze in new wheels and tires as well, maybe even a 2" suspension lift if anything is left

It's hard to beat an old carb'ed 350 for simplicity and reliability! Maybe one day my blazer can inherit the 350 from my Chevelle, when I finally get that nasty 383 built for it!

Probably a dumb question, but would anything need to be done with the transmission to put a carb'ed engine in? I have no clue how much interaction there is between the transmission and engine computer.

If you're shotting for the 350 hp mark, you're gonna need good heads. To keep costs down on heads, go vortec heads. You can pull these out at the junkyard and get a good deal. Just make sure to find a good set. Only problem is vortec heads require a vortec style intake which cost a bit new but you can buy a used one cheaper. And vortec heads are limited to .480 lift. If you want to spend some extra you can get some 200cc aluminum heads from an ebay seller for 400 a pair shipped bare. I actually have a set I'm working on now and they're very nice. A dart copy to be excat from what I seen. There's a thread on Third Gen about them. Just out quality parts in them but that route is around 700 to get a set ready to roll.

Depending on how you go with heads, most stock heads are gonna require clearancing for the valve lift stated by the camshaft. Most stock heads are limited to .480 lift and some to .450. They're work arounds like +.100 or +.200 valves but that requires work to get the valve geometry right. You will wanna research what your options are if you wanna run that cam.

As for the camshaft, I cannot say anything on how it'll perform in your application as there are too many variables you didn't give like rear gear size, stall speed, and tire size. Plus I'm not good will camshaft sizing so don't ask me too much about the right size lol.

You'll need to get a new torque converter with a higher stall speed if you run a bigger camshaft. You'll have to research what will work for it as I don't know.

Your transmission will work if you leave the computer in and the sensors hooked up. Just do some research on this too but it won't be hard. You'll just have a check engine light as the computer won't be controlling or reading the engine.

Remember if you have emissions and strict safety inspection, it'll be hard or almost impossible to get away with a carb'ed motor. Just make sure you can get it to pass if you want it to be a street truck. And before you loosen a bolt or touch anything, do plenty of research. You can never be overly prepared.

hi
i am helping a friend with his s10. it's an 85 2wd pick up and here's what we have done. like you he is no mechanic, but... we started with a '72 4 bolt main 350 block and had it bored to a 355(.030 over) had the block "0" decked and installed flat top forged pistons, installed a crane cam #292h. this cam is .501 lift intake and exhaust and 292 degrees of duration. we installed those aluminum heads the last guy was talking about and they are from KMJ performance in IOWA. they are "ASSAULT" RACING HEADS. they are 2.02\1.60 valves with a 64cc combustion chamber size. KMJ are now selling the heads bare, but if you call them they will install the valves and so-forth. they have great customer support and will answer all you questions regarding the valve train and intake setup. we paided $589.00\pr. including shipping. we took the heads to a friends engine shop and he took one at these heads and said that he could not improve on the flow or workmanship and to just run them. we installed .100 longer pushrods to get the geometry right and then we needed to run a Performer Air Gap manifold because the heads are a "raised port"design. the carb we are running is a holley 670 cfm street avenger. we tried a 600 cfm edlebrock and found to be too small, then a 750cfm holley it was too big. the 670 makes this thing scream!!! we are running a "street\strip 700r4 trans with a 2500 stall converter. we swapped out the stock 7.5" 3.42 rear end for a 3.73 limited slip 8.8" ford from an explorer, we narrowed it 3" on the left side and installed a right side axle shaft and new spring pads and it works great and we don't have worry about it grenading on hard launches. with the 64cc combustion chamber heads and the decking and flattop pistons it gave us about a 10.5:1 compression and about 400 hp on pump gas. good luck with your build and have a great time.